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poppyseedheartHello! I got a 2 part ask on curiouscat with several questions therein about my svt 95s entry to last year's emofest, there's so much sun where i'm from. i thought it would be fun to make a post here to answer the questions and talk process, among other things.
Thank you to this reader for writing in and asking qs I always love talking about writing and getting the excuse to do more of it is a joy.
1. how do you imagine the future of joshua and the future of jeonghan/seungcheol?
Jeonghan/Seungcheol stay together in my eyes. I think their relationship is solid and they've done a good job in the time between the scenes we get of them in the fic of communicating and making sure they are on the exact same page about things whenever that's possible.
Joshua does move on! Slowly and not easily, but in my head there's a significantly less exciting Joshua/Seokmin sequel where Seokmin starts working at Joshua's company and they spend time together bc shared culture & some shared language and feelings develop and Joshua does freak out a little bc the last time it was this easy he broke his own heart for what he thought would be for life, but he realized then and knows now that it's never really game over if you keep your head up and keep moving forward. The fic ends with Joshua right back in LAX because he hadn't yet moved on from getting home/leaving Jeongcheol, but that's not real life, you know? In real life he went home and felt sorry for himself and then went to work. Hung out with his friends. Picked up some new hobbies. Kept moving.
They did revive their group chat at the end of the fic but I don't think that lasts very long. They do all end up some modicum of happy, but they don't stay in each other's lives, and that's okay.
2. it is VERY hinted by joshua's eyes, but does jeonghan notices he is hurting? are their way of approaching him as a form of closure, genuine curiosity of of the summer love they had?
Putting these two together. Jeonghan definitely notices. He's perceptive and tricky and holds grudges. I think approaching him (for brunch in particular) was largely for closure, yeah, but it was also to play out that grudge. There is something really vindictive about the way Jeonghan shows off the line of bruises at his neck, how they show up together. It's a "we don't need you anymore" in direct response to Joshua's "I'm leaving" from two years prior. A conversation they never got to finish. & Jeonghan can't stand not having the last word.
I think Jeonghan and Seungcheol did move on better than Joshua did, but I think it's mostly because they had each other. Individually, they took it hard. That summer did a number on all three of them.
3. do you think from jeonghan/scoups point of view they didn’t want to take any action on contacting him bc they were hurt, because they were respecting his space or bc they really thought joshua wasn’t into them as much as they were - thinking that for him it was just a summer love and leaving was easy?
More than anything I think it's just hard to be left behind. What did they have to truly gain by contacting a boy they loved for a summer who went back to his life in a different country? One hard truth of this fic is that these three didn't and don't have a future together. There are ways things could have been different——if Joshua had succeeded as an idol and stayed in Korea, if he'd stayed with the same company from his internship——but I write and think a lot about Los Angeles in the context of a home and that showed up here so prominently. Some of it was hurt and some of it was respecting them. Some of it was also thinking he wasn't as into them, or worrying that they had come on too strong. But I think hurt is the answer that feels most right. They were nursing wounds. And then it was like, okay, it's been months and talking to him will only hurt more because it's on his terms.
A wedding, on the other hand... which leads into the next and last question.
4. was the reason they had the wedding there for what they both said or was there more to it?
The biggest question! This is the thing I think the most people were wondering about, and it came up with my betas too.
There was more to it. Some of it is what I wrote earlier, because the ultimate revenge is served cold to your ex-boyfriend when you get to shove it in his face that you don't need him to be happy. & some of is that they both wanted to talk to Joshua again, and a wedding is home turf. He's on their terms even in the city he introduced to the both of them in countless stories that summer. It's a power play. It's rewriting their dynamics, since when Joshua left he didn't give them a chance to argue or fight or even really say a true goodbye.
Nobody gets an easy ending in this story. Their closure as a trio happens in an ugly mess over two years and never fully gets resolved. I wanted to explore what that would mean, and how real that is. There are so many people in my life that I drifted from in a way most narratives would have wanted to put a bow on, but that's not always how it works, and it doesn't mean you're going to be permanently broken and ruined.
People tell me a lot that this story is sadder than they were expecting, which is fair, but it was never going to have a happy ending from the very first word I wrote, and I never promised that. I'm grateful that people took a chance on it anyway, and also that I didn't get chased out of caratland with pitchforks for not tagging it sad or open ending. (I didn't tag a happy ending either!) I wanted to write about the human condition of complicated heartbreak, and I'm glad I got to and that people picked up what I was putting down.
Thank you for reading and for letting me ramble! <3
Thank you to this reader for writing in and asking qs I always love talking about writing and getting the excuse to do more of it is a joy.
1. how do you imagine the future of joshua and the future of jeonghan/seungcheol?
Jeonghan/Seungcheol stay together in my eyes. I think their relationship is solid and they've done a good job in the time between the scenes we get of them in the fic of communicating and making sure they are on the exact same page about things whenever that's possible.
Joshua does move on! Slowly and not easily, but in my head there's a significantly less exciting Joshua/Seokmin sequel where Seokmin starts working at Joshua's company and they spend time together bc shared culture & some shared language and feelings develop and Joshua does freak out a little bc the last time it was this easy he broke his own heart for what he thought would be for life, but he realized then and knows now that it's never really game over if you keep your head up and keep moving forward. The fic ends with Joshua right back in LAX because he hadn't yet moved on from getting home/leaving Jeongcheol, but that's not real life, you know? In real life he went home and felt sorry for himself and then went to work. Hung out with his friends. Picked up some new hobbies. Kept moving.
They did revive their group chat at the end of the fic but I don't think that lasts very long. They do all end up some modicum of happy, but they don't stay in each other's lives, and that's okay.
2. it is VERY hinted by joshua's eyes, but does jeonghan notices he is hurting? are their way of approaching him as a form of closure, genuine curiosity of of the summer love they had?
Putting these two together. Jeonghan definitely notices. He's perceptive and tricky and holds grudges. I think approaching him (for brunch in particular) was largely for closure, yeah, but it was also to play out that grudge. There is something really vindictive about the way Jeonghan shows off the line of bruises at his neck, how they show up together. It's a "we don't need you anymore" in direct response to Joshua's "I'm leaving" from two years prior. A conversation they never got to finish. & Jeonghan can't stand not having the last word.
I think Jeonghan and Seungcheol did move on better than Joshua did, but I think it's mostly because they had each other. Individually, they took it hard. That summer did a number on all three of them.
3. do you think from jeonghan/scoups point of view they didn’t want to take any action on contacting him bc they were hurt, because they were respecting his space or bc they really thought joshua wasn’t into them as much as they were - thinking that for him it was just a summer love and leaving was easy?
More than anything I think it's just hard to be left behind. What did they have to truly gain by contacting a boy they loved for a summer who went back to his life in a different country? One hard truth of this fic is that these three didn't and don't have a future together. There are ways things could have been different——if Joshua had succeeded as an idol and stayed in Korea, if he'd stayed with the same company from his internship——but I write and think a lot about Los Angeles in the context of a home and that showed up here so prominently. Some of it was hurt and some of it was respecting them. Some of it was also thinking he wasn't as into them, or worrying that they had come on too strong. But I think hurt is the answer that feels most right. They were nursing wounds. And then it was like, okay, it's been months and talking to him will only hurt more because it's on his terms.
A wedding, on the other hand... which leads into the next and last question.
4. was the reason they had the wedding there for what they both said or was there more to it?
The biggest question! This is the thing I think the most people were wondering about, and it came up with my betas too.
There was more to it. Some of it is what I wrote earlier, because the ultimate revenge is served cold to your ex-boyfriend when you get to shove it in his face that you don't need him to be happy. & some of is that they both wanted to talk to Joshua again, and a wedding is home turf. He's on their terms even in the city he introduced to the both of them in countless stories that summer. It's a power play. It's rewriting their dynamics, since when Joshua left he didn't give them a chance to argue or fight or even really say a true goodbye.
Nobody gets an easy ending in this story. Their closure as a trio happens in an ugly mess over two years and never fully gets resolved. I wanted to explore what that would mean, and how real that is. There are so many people in my life that I drifted from in a way most narratives would have wanted to put a bow on, but that's not always how it works, and it doesn't mean you're going to be permanently broken and ruined.
People tell me a lot that this story is sadder than they were expecting, which is fair, but it was never going to have a happy ending from the very first word I wrote, and I never promised that. I'm grateful that people took a chance on it anyway, and also that I didn't get chased out of caratland with pitchforks for not tagging it sad or open ending. (I didn't tag a happy ending either!) I wanted to write about the human condition of complicated heartbreak, and I'm glad I got to and that people picked up what I was putting down.
Thank you for reading and for letting me ramble! <3